Vacationtime

...Hello, she answered...

...It was set at about the time Hemingway was finishing Across the River and into the Trees and Salvador Dali was extending the wax points of his mustache to their ultimate length...

...I was certain her chest was reserved for breasts that could conceivably become much larger than mine...

...She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen...

...The stadium was pandemonium...

...It happened that on the same day Laurence Olivier opened in Shakespeare's Henry V It was his most powerful performance and the audience, stunned by what it had just seen, walked out humming the tunes from Oklahoma...

...The eggs were almost invariably sunnyside up...

...She was disconsolate...

...Especially excited was the man seated next to me, who was cheering ungrammatically...

...This could easily have led to atomic war...

...And always that wracking cough...

...He used to come home so tired of ovals that every evening, after supper, he would send me out for ice cream in the shape of bricks...

...Who else, the speaker asked, could have made such an enormous contribution to double-parking...

...Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, disagreed...

...Byrnes refused to concede...

...Someone made a speech and cited Mr...

...One Sunday Father took me to the Yankee Stadium and Di Maggio hit two home runs...

...The next day here at home a new era began for me: I met Clara...

...I followed his progress avidly in the papers and I pondered the claim of scientists that Di Mag's low batting average, like Rita Hay-worth, was an optical illusion...

...He acknowledged my stare and said, How about that Di Mag, young fella...

...Her dress, which fell fashionably below her knees (which, in turn, fell fashionably below her thighs), revealed only a pair, of remarkably alluring ankles, yet disturbingly suggested a figure full of the promise of sensuality...

...He even kicked the ball...

...Harry Truman, the doughty little ex-haberdasher, was President and men walked around in shirtsleeves, which were then considered cooler than shoes...

...And William O'Dwyer was mayor of New York...

...Henry Ford, the tears of pride streaming down his cheeks, said, You are honoring me for something I loved to do and would have done for nothing...

...The perspiring masses went to the beaches to escape the heat, or sprayed each other with bottles of seltzer...

...Grandfather was a sweet old man with a long, white patriarchal beard and the harsh, rasping cough characteristic of those who smoke Melachrinos...

...Previously, my attempts at girl-chasing had been crude and undistinguished...

...But Grandfather was adamant and kept pinching Mother...

...Fortunately it was a false alarm...

...Toward the end of July Joe Di Maggio was in a slump and life seemed absurd...

...The Russian and U.S...

...Negotiations were resumed however, after certain assurances were given to both parties: George Bidault of France stated unequivocally to the Soviets that Tolstoy was a finer writer than Walter Winchell, and Clement Atlee of England assured the American delegation that Fred Astaire could dance rings around Peter Ilyioh Tchaikovsky...

...So the talks were hastily arranged...

...Secretary of State James Byrnes opened the proceedings by calling this the beginning of an era...

...Ford shook their hands, kissed them, and promised to donate his learner's permit to the Smithsonian Institution...

...Father candled eggs all day for a meager living...

...The aged tycoon, despite his wealth and power, clearly showed his years...

...Her egg cream was sweet on my lips...

...The tenement I lived in was a steambath and we slept on the fire-escape, my brother and I. One night we were suddenly awakened by firemen trampling all over us on then-way down from the roof...

...The Soviet Union had accused the United States of intensifying the cold war by accelerating its production of frozen blintzes...

...Thus mollified, Russia and the U.S...

...I looked at her as she sadly stood on the stoop, precariously balancing herself on one leg, unable to relinquish her potsy stance...

...The great Yankee Clipper tried everything he could to get a base hit...

...And the world heaved a sigh of relief...

...She let her raised leg fall to the ground and we walked to the ice-cream parlor...

...Shyly she lowered her eyes and gazed at me searchingly through her cheeks...

...The heat drove people out of their apartments, and those who could afford them fried eggs on the streets...

...Hello, Pumpkin, I said...

...The conferees were hard-driving, masterful men who had fought their way to special parking privileges and were expected to lead mankind out of chaos...

...Seated at a table dominated by his aimless chatter and Mother's boiled chicken, he would ferociously attack his supper with his right hand and occasionally pinch Mother with his left...

...We called him Zaydeh, a name affectionately given him by his parents when he was a child, and we were happy for his presence...

...The beginning of August, as was customary, coincided sharply with the end of July, and the rest of the month followed in normal sequence...

...But all he could get was a foul...

...Ford and presented him with an honorary driver's license...

...Can I buy you a soda, I said...

...My heart pounded...

...Maybe you'll develop another type cough...

...Lacking genuine control, I would either fail to catch up with them or run far past them, often into a lamppost...

...diplomats summarily picked up their papers and walked out of the hall...

...How cooling, how delicious it was...

...And, as we watched a long fly ball hang lazily in the clear summer sky, the General inquired, Have you ever tried candling baseballs...

...Everybody laughed...

...That month, as was the style, the sun rose in the sky, burned fiercely all day, then set rather grudingly...

...That's a good one, they said...

...We got into a friendly conversation and the General told us all about the new system of grammar he was developing...

...Father would plead with him, Zaydeh, change brands already...

...Murray Macht is a freelance writer who has contributed to Saturday Review and the New York Times...

...COINCIDENTALLY, this Was the moment in history when representatives of the world's most powerful nations were forgathering in Paris for a summit conference...

...Father said, I candle eggs...

...No one, roared the crowd...

...At that time another old man, Henry Ford, was in Maryland being feted on the occasion of his 83rd birthday...

...I turned and recognized General Eisenhower...

...To me she was unquestionably the only sex goddess ever to emerge from the second floor, and her appearance in the hallway of our building would make me tremble with a strange anticipation...

...Both delegations sulked in their respective hotel rooms for days, with only occasional mambo lessons to lighten the gloom...

...The day we met there had been a thunderstorm and the rain had washed away her laboriously drawn potsy game...

...U.S...

...Then a group of children, many of whom were destined to be sideswiped by the product of his genius, serenaded Mr...

...He called it the end of an era...

...He asked Father, What do you do...

...The Russians threatened reprisals, possibly with increased shipments of ballet dancers...

...It was a great day, even though Mother was angry at Father when we got home and cut the sleeves from the jacket of his best suit...

...But it was different with Clara...

...Yes, she said...

...They issued a joint resolution that this was the middle of an era...

...People speculated that it was due to the wartime shortage of replacement parts...

...On the way back I kissed the beautiful Clara...

...Father replied, I'm working on it...

...Ford's great talent for mass production...

...They met at a most critical juncture...

...The next Friday was the last day of vacation...

...He was sure it would qualify him for the presidency of Columbia University...

...reached a compromise...

...That month my Grandfather on Father's side came to visit us...

...My head whirling, I approached her...

...I revered my Zaydeh and would often help him dry his beard whenever he retrieved it from the soup...

...I was enchanted...